Thanks to Patreon, the concept of the “starving artist” is one that may soon become a thing of the past.

Patreon is a way for people, whether they be fans, readers, or viewers, to “sponsor” your creative work every month. Your fans sign up to become a “patron” of your work by committing anything from one dollar to several hundred dollars, depending on the tier they choose.

In this article, we’ll help you set up a Patreon page and give you a few tips to make it successful.

How Patreon Works

Unlike the “donation” approach many creatives use, with Patreon your fans commit to donating a monthly payment to your cause. There are Patreon creators who make a few hundred dollars each month, while others tens of thousands of dollars each month.

Kinda Funny: A well known YouTube channel with over 200,000 subscribers, Kinda Funny creates special content for Patreon members.

Amanda Palmer: Amanda is an artist of many works, from performance art and music to podcasts and documentaries. Her eclectic mix of art has brought in over 11,000 patrons at the time of writing.

SciShow: This creator is proof that people enjoy educational art as well. SciShow creates YouTube videos about science, and their Patreon community currently brings in almost $20,000 a month.

Peter Hollens: A music creator who produces amazing a capella productions for his fans, Peter’s 4,000 patrons prove that you don’t have to be a starving artist to do what you love to do.

WaitButWhy: This is one of the first blogs that started using Patreon to offer readers an ad-free reading experience. The experiment was a glowing success. Tim Urban and Andrew Finn, the creators of WaitButWhy, are currently the most successful Patreon-funded bloggers to date.

Once you’ve created your well-crafted overview page, it’s time to think about the contribution tiers. You’ll need to decide what rewards you want to give your patrons.

How Patreon Membership Tiers Work

On the right side of the Overview creation page, you’ll see a checklist. By this point you should have everything checked off in green up until Create membership tiers.

Click on this link to move on to the next step.

When considering each tier for subscriptions, offer enough to entice subscribers. However, don’t offer so much that you can’t keep up with things.

Free products are great so long as the cost of the product and shipping is covered by the donation. The most popular tier rewards are exclusive access to content.

To create each tier, just click the Edit Tier link on the right side of the screen. Fill in a good description describing the benefits of that tier, and make sure to add the benefits to the list on the right side as well.

You could add contributors to a newsletter list and give them early access (or discounted access) to whatever work you create. Or you could produce exclusive content just for patrons donating at particular tiers.

Typical Patreon Membership Tier Structure

This gives your patrons a feeling like they are contributing to your work, or gaining some benefit from their monthly contribution. Without a reward that feels valuable to subscribers, it’s going to be much harder growing your patron community.

The most common tier structure looks like this:

The first tier is usually between $1 to $5 a month

Make the second tier $10 to $25 a month

Tier 3 might be something like $50 to $100 a month

Upper tiers can range anywhere from $300 upwards of $1000 a month. But the rewards for those should be substantial. Make sure you put a plan and some sort of automated solution in place to provide those rewards to the people who subscribe.

For example, you might add the emails for those top tier subscribers to a special email list where you regularly send high-value discounts, special gifts, and other valuable benefits. It’s important to make them feel like they’re getting value from those contributions. Otherwise they’ll cancel their contributions.

The email entry form lets you format the email just like you normally would. Make sure to introduce yourself to make it appear as though it’s a personal one-to-one thank you letter.

Also promise to follow up. Each tier should have an individualized email that you’ll eventually send providing the subscriber with links to any special access forms or private web pages you’ve set up just for them.

How to Promote Your Patreon Page

While seeing others who are so successful using Patreon as a source of income is encouraging, replicating that success won’t come easy. Especially if you haven’t already built a fanbase on another platform.

Just creating your Patreon overview page and tiers isn’t going to bring in all of your patrons. You need to promote your new Patreon page using every channel at your disposal.

Here are a few ideas to accomplish that:

Create Patreon blog posts: It’s important to create frequent blog posts on Patreon. Make many of those accessible only to patrons. This will encourage people to at least commit to the minimum amount so they can read your posts.

Social Media: Promote your patreon page on every social platform you have an account on. Having existing followers there gives you access to a lot of people who’ve already expressed interest in your work.

Newsletter: If you’ve developed a large email subscriber list over time, this is one of your best sources for potential patrons. These are people who’ve already subscribed to your work, so committing a small financial donation every month is not a very big leap.

Blog Posts: If you already have a blog, take full advantage of that audience by posting regular blog updates about your Patreon campaign and the growing community there. Entice your readers to get involved.

Community: You’ll notice a community link on your Patreon page. This is where you can regularly engage with people who’ve signed up as patrons. Staying active here is critical to keeping and growing your patron community.

YouTube: If you don’t already have a YouTube channel, consider creating one to present yourself to the world. Seeing your face and hearing you talk about your work will encourage even more people to commit to supporting you.

Free Stuff: Marketers know that people love free stuff. The most powerful marketing campaigns are built on offering things like free eBooks. Offer this free eBook or other free content through any of the channels above. Also make sure to promote your Patreon page in that free content.

Stay Engaged With Patrons!

The most successful people on Patreon have built their audiences by knowing how to promote themselves. They’re not just active in their Patreon community, but also regularly encourage Patreon donations in everything they do. This is the only real way to build your list of Patreon contributors.

Ryan has a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering. He's worked 13 years in automation engineering, 5 years in IT, and now is an Apps Engineer. A former Managing Editor of MakeUseOf, he's spoken at national conferences on Data Visualization and has been featured on national TV and radio.